Social media paid campaigns are a vital tool for anyone who wants to promote their brand. Even if you’re opting for a free social media campaign, the time you spend translates to real money; you need to make sure you’re hitting your target audience and that you’re getting real results from that platform.
social media paid campaigns
We’re going to take a look at when you should utilize each social media platform - and which brands are the most likely to succeed.
Facebook Campaigns – The Granddaddy of Them All
Facebook is the biggest social media network. It also comes with the most sophisticated advertising platform of all. Arguably, Facebook has pioneered the whole business of running paid campaigns, and it continues to lead the way today, which is a reason paid Facebook campaigns can work for practically everyone.
Basic ad campaigns can be accessed via the Power Editor. After you’ve run a basic campaign you should use your Facebook pixel to track the traffic going to your target page. You can then target ads exclusively to people who clicked before but didn’t do what you wanted them to do, such as downloading a whitepaper.
Twitter Campaigns – A Laser Targeted System
Twitter’s paid campaign platform is nowhere near as effective as Facebook and some of the other options on this list; while every brand should be on Twitter, not every brand should invest in paid advertising.
Paid Twitter campaigns work best when you’re trying to target a tiny yet lucrative audience. With costs for each promoted Tweet engagement going well over the $1 mark, this can get expensive fast. Do the math and determine whether you can really invest in this type of promotion.
Personally, we wouldn’t recommend using this platform unless you’re attempting to sell a bigger ticket item somewhere in the buying process. If you’re just trying to get more subscribers for your newsletter, this isn’t a cost-effective way of getting them.
Instagram Campaigns – Facebook’s Little Brother
Facebook bought Instagram three years ago, which means that Instagram ads are now combined with Facebook ads. Anyone running a Facebook ads campaign will find that Instagram exposure is enabled automatically (with the ability to turn them off).
Keep in mind, Instagram ads aren’t for every brand. It’s a visual platform with a certain clientele. Instagram tends to be for younger demographics and brands that can produce interesting images. For example, your professional accountancy firm likely isn’t going to be a hit on Instagram.
Pinterest Campaigns – The Growing Social Media Trump Card
Advertisers love promoted Pins on Pinterest because they’re so effective at driving business. It’s also a social media network that has grown at an incredible rate. The reason for this is simple: Pinterest offered something entirely different. It aimed to provide inspiration, rather than report on current events in people’s lives.
Like Instagram, Pinterest users never communicate with words they communicate using images; often that they created themselves. This is an image-based network. You need something striking if you’re going to succeed here. You also need to keep in mind that Pinterest has a mostly female demographic.
Reddit Campaigns – Alternate Advertising
Reddit is one of the largest forum collectives in the world, and when a brand advertises on Reddit, they’re paying to be at the top of a SubReddit. Here brands can target customers based on certain issues and contexts. For example, you may be advertising a guide on financial independence. You have the option to place it in the Personal Finance sub reddit, which has more than 11 million subscribers.
Reddit advertising’s ROI is relatively low, but so are the advertising costs. The lack of traditional ads here also means that this is ideal for brands who are frustrated with ad blockers hiding their ads from their target audience.
How Do You Launch a Paid Social Media Advertising Campaign without Wasting Money?
Using the parameters set down in this blog, you have a basic idea of which social networks may be the best fit for your brand, but that also doesn’t mean that your first campaign is going to yield huge returns.
There are certain principles that should be part of every campaign.
Targeting – Resist the temptation to try to hit a large audience. Focus on a small group so you know every cent is going to work for you.
Monitoring – Paid social media campaigns are very much about trial and error. During the first few days you should check the progress of your campaigns and make any necessary changes.
Measuring – Ultimately, you need a way to ensure that your social media campaign will help achieve your goals. Use traffic numbers and exclusive pages to measure the traffic sent back to your website from the campaign.
Experience is the key to making social media campaigning work. Which platforms have you seen the best results on?
by The Penguin Team on April 21, 2017
As a leading B2B digital marketing agency, We help B2B Technology Companies, enterprise software, and hardware companies increase brand awareness, reach more qualified leads and close more customers. Penguin Strategies is a Diamond Partner of HubSpot.
